The worst thing most people have to worry about with a difficult mother-in-law is a snide comment at Christmas dinner, an unsolicited opinion about the wedding flowers, or a slightly loaded remark about when the grandchildren are coming. Annoying, yes. Occasionally, infuriating. But ultimately, survivable with a glass of wine and a long drive home.
One newlywed woman had to deal with considerably more from her nightmare mother-in-law. She took toxicity to whole new levels when she kicked the bride out of her own bed on her wedding night, planting a life-threatening trap that would have her end up in the emergency room before the honeymoon could even take place.
More info: Reddit
Most people's worst mother-in-law story involves a passive-aggressive comment at Christmas dinner, and then there are stories like this one
Image credits: Freepik / Magnific (not the actual photo)
A woman had been with her man for five years and really thought she knew who she was marrying, up until his mother entered the room, and a completely different man appeared
Image credits: The Yuri Arcurs Collection / Magnific (not the actual photo)
She spent her wedding night on the couch because her mother-in-law had claimed the marital bed, which, in hindsight, was the least alarming thing that was going to happen
Image credits: DC Studio / Magnific (not the actual photo)
Three weeks into the marriage, she went to bed and noticed what felt like plastic under the mattress, assumed it was packaging she had missed, and woke up seventeen hours later in a hospital
Image credits: Stockbusters / Magnific (not the actual photo)
The mother-in-law called while she was in the hospital to explain that she had put latex in her bed, and she knew her daughter-in-law had a known latex allergy that could end her life
Image credits: sugahmamah
She nullified the marriage just twenty-six days after the wedding, and the mother-in-law was sentenced to thirteen months in prison and a psychiatric evaluation
This woman had always known that her mother-in-law was a problem. She spent the engagement trying to dismantle their relationship, and the wedding night itself ended with the bride sleeping on the couch because the mother-in-law had claimed the marital bed. She had been with her husband for five years before the wedding and thought she knew him. But when his mom was around, another version existed.
Three weeks into the marriage, she came home from work frustrated, went to bed early, and noticed what felt like a thin layer of plastic under her mattress. She had just bought the bed a month earlier and assumed it was leftover packaging she had missed. She fell asleep and woke up seventeen hours later in a hospital. Her mother-in-law had cut up 75 latex gloves and created a layer of them beneath her duvet cover.
This newlywed had a severe and documented latex allergy that had been known since toddlerhood, noted on her driver's license, and worn around her neck on an allergen necklace. The mother-in-law knew. While she was in hospital, the mother-in-law called to tell her she had done it because she was worried she might wet the bed, given how childishly she had been behaving.
Her husband, when confronted, said he was sorry about her behaviour. He visited the hospital once during the week she spent there but the visit was to ask her to apologize to his mother. She had security remove him from her room instead.
She nullified the marriage on the 20th of February, twenty-six days after the wedding. She pressed charges, moved 500km away, changed her number twice after her first employer gave it to her ex-husband, and eventually moved again. The mother-in-law was sentenced to 13-months in prison and a month in a psychiatric facility.
She served 8-months and 2 weeks respectively, and was released early, wanting to apologize in person. The woman laughed until she physically could not stop and then said no very loudly. She has a new boyfriend, a new city, and a new life, and she is still a little scared but no longer alone.
Image credits: daniel-007 / Magnific (not the actual photo)
An annulment is a legal declaration that a marriage never validly existed in the first place. Unlike a divorce, which ends a valid marriage, an annulment essentially erases it from a legal standpoint. Most countries allow annulment on specific grounds such as fraud, incapacity, or, in this case, circumstances that made the marriage fundamentally untenable from the start. Call it the easiest way out.
The divorce rate within the first year of marriage sits at around 10%, meaning approximately one in ten marriages end before the first anniversary. Most of those involve incompatibility, financial stress, or communication breakdowns. Very few involve seventy five latex gloves and a hospital stay. She is a statistical outlier in the most unhinged way possible.
The FBI offers guidance for crime victims dealing with trauma in the aftermath, and she qualifies on every count. Their advice includes finding someone to talk to, allowing yourself to feel the pain rather than suppress it, keeping a journal, re-establishing a normal routine as soon as possible, and making small daily decisions to restore a sense of control.
She did most of these things instinctively, moving cities, changing numbers, building a new life, and finding a community online that gave her somewhere to put the story when she had no one else to tell it to. She laughed when she heard the MIL wanted to apologize. That laugh was not nothing. That was someone who had done the work of getting to the other side of something genuinely traumatic.
Have you ever had to deal with a mother-in-law from hell? Use this chance to trauma dump in the comments!
Folks on the internet had to pick their jaws up from the floor, all suddenly feeling pretty lucky that their mother-in-law draws the line at federal crimes
